Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

Six tourists hire an extreme tour guide who takes them to the abandoned city Pripyat, the former home to the workers of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. During their exploration, they soon discover they are not alone.

I don’t really get chance to review many horror movies that were released on the big screen. The majority I see are home video releases, or hidden gems, and whilst I know I’m a few months behind on this, it’s still strange reviewing something that I know is pretty well watched. That being said, it’s a movie I was itching to see, but all the bad word of mouth around it on release made me wait a while to form my own judgement. Yet I’m still gonna be negative myself…….after all that…….

Chernobyl Diaries was co-produced and directed by Bradley Parker (as well as being produced by Oren Peli), and uses the real-life 1986 Chernobyl disaster for its backdrop. Chris (Jesse McCartney), his girlfriend Natalie (Olivia Taylor Dudley), and their mutual friend Amanda (Devin Kelley), are traveling across Europe, visiting Paris, Rome and London. They stop in Kiev, Ukraine, to visit Chris’s brother, Paul (Jonathan Sadowski), before heading on to Moscow where Chris intends to propose to Natalie.

After a night on the town, Paul suggests they go for an “extreme tour” of the abandoned town of Prypiat which sits in the shadow of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, deserted since the events. They are joined by a backpacking couple, Norwegian Zoe (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) and Australian Michael (Nathan Phillips – Wolf Creek, Dying Breed). After being refused entry by military guarding the location, their tour guide Yuri (Dimitri Diatchenko), sneaks them in at an unguarded spot.

Along the way they stop at a river where they discover a large, mutated fish (which reminded me of The Simpsons!). The friends are worried about radiation poisoning, but Yuri assures them they are safe as he has a Geiger counter. They then spend a few hours exploring the abandoned city, including the gymnasium and it’s infamous Ferris wheel (I will admit that when the Ferris wheel came on-screen, it did bring back some Call of Duty memories).

Disaster inevitably strikes after a great day sightseeing and the group are ready to leave. To their dismay, the van wont start. Then they come to the realisation that not only are they being watched, but someone or something does not want them to leave………..

Let’s start with what I liked about Chernobyl Diaries. The location looked so authentic. I mean, whilst I haven’t been there, it looked as it always does on photos and documentaries. Suitably eerie and creepy, the location really was the star here.

Cast wise, they were a likeable group I felt. I always like Nathan Phillips, and have linked a couple of my other reviews where he appears further up, and he is always good fun to watch. He brings the comedy here, and is easily the most likeable out of them all. The brothers relationship is a little strange, but that was never really expanded on. Yuri was good fun I suppose, and looked like he was straight out of GTA IV with his track suit top and huge build. A fun character! They all gave decent performances, and were just about believable as a group of friends. Their characters actions were debatable, but that’s the scripts issue not theirs!

My main negative would be the hand-held cameras. I know Oren Peli made his name with the Paranormal Activity franchise, and found footage, but I just felt it was used badly here. The locations looked beautiful and haunting, the video was HD crystal clear, and the cast all looked gorgeous. So when the film starts and we get to see videos of various European stops on the friends tour, I felt there was a reason for someone to be filming them POV style. Then it turns out it isn’t one of the group working the camera, and we stay in this style throughout the duration. It just felt like a waste, or missed opportunity to not have the group filming each other the whole time. Well, at one point they did, but I hope you get what I mean.

For a ‘horror‘ film, Chernobyl Diaries just wasn’t scary. It had some suspense, and it was creepy at times once the ‘things in the dark‘ were unveiled (kind of) but it took a bit of research after I’d watched it to see what the threat was. And it was a good explanation, and intriguing, and made me wonder why this wasn’t explored in the actual movie itself.

Actually, no, the worst thing here is that you never see anyone die!! I want to avoid spoilers as always, but I will say there are deaths here. I appreciate it was shot on a low-budget, and we see the after effects and dead bodies, but there are no on-screen deaths. I found this a really surprising move, and wasn’t a fan of it. I appreciate that sometimes less is more, but it just didn’t work for me here.

Overall, I just felt as though Chernobyl Diaries had so much potential but just felt rushed and incomplete. It really could have been something great for this genre, but I came away from this disappointed. Whilst there is definitely interest from me in a sequel should one ever come to fruition, and the large gross would prove I’m not alone in checking it out, there are lots of things to improve on to make a better experience next time round.

Posted by Tysoncarter182 on January 17, 2013

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